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Created by Scott Jampol
Thu 04/27/06 (day 1)
New Orleans Jazz Fest 2006
My wife Patricia and I arrived from San Francisco to Louis Armstrong International Airport around 9 pm. The airport looked exactly as it had the many times I had been there before, except a damp and dingy smell that lingered throughout the terminals and an air of emptiness caused by the closed vendors and newstands.
The walk down the terminal was quite familiar. It was my 9th trek in 10 years to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival - one of my favorite weekend of the year. However, this year's visit to New Orleans held a lot of uncertainty due to our questions about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the spirit of the city and the mood of the Jazz Fest. However, this year more than any other, we felt like we needed to be there and to support the businesses and people of this great city. Our goal was to balance enjoying the festival and city with touring the affected parts of the city and speaking with the remaining people about the recovery.
Thursday night, night one of our three night trip, was a solo night for Patricia and I as our other 4 companions would be arriving on Friday. We hurried from the airport to the Country Inn & Suites, just off Canal Street. Typically we have stayed at the great French Quarter Courtyard Hotel (a very authentic, no frills joint outside the FQ), but they were not open to the public as they are still housing relief workers and displaced families. We certainly knew we would miss the great bar, ice cold "pool" and scary balcony.
The Country Inn was perfectly average. Clean. Well appointed. Fresh baked cookies in the lobby. But no New Orleans personality in its design or staff. More to come soon....
Jazz Fest was wonderful as always, it was great to see so many people return to support NO. It was distressing to see the corporate sponsors taking over,hope that trend can be reversed.
We volunteered at Habitat For Humanity's Musicians Village project.That was the high point of our trip, to be able to help in some small way to rebuid this great city. I would challenge ALL who vist New Orleans to find some tangible way to help while you are there, the need is far greater than words can ever describe.
The Jazz Fest was incredible. It was jam packed. Food was great as usual, music was phenomenal(although I could do without the mainstream top names-makes it less quaint and more corporate)
We stayed at the Hilton Riverside which was great even though it too was under repair. We missed some of the usual restaurants due to closure. But we did find plenty of great places to eat. The French Quarter which was spared by most of the flood damage, but has suffered in many other ways. Many of the businesses are suffering because they have no workers, no steady business. We heard many people say that they don't think they can stay because there is not enough business. We went to Cafe Du Monde which is always packed. It wasn't while we were there and it was missing I would say 60% of its staff. The mall was a ghost town.
We had a cab driver drive us to see some of the damage because it was hard to comprehend the damage from the French Quarter. It was very sad. It is far worse than any pictures you see on the news.
We hope to return for 2007 Jazz Fest. People need to go to New Orleans to support the businesses and to keep it going.